Sullivan County developer Berman back with new casino plans

Sunday

Nov 17, 2013 at 2:00 AMNov 17, 2013 at 5:59 PM

ROCK HILL — He's back.

BY STEVE ISRAEL

ROCK HILL — He's back.

Sullivan County native Robert Berman, who almost brought a casino to Sullivan just over a decade ago, is the latest player in the increasingly competitive quest for a Catskill gambling resort. Berman has teamed with longtime partner Joe Bernstein on plans to build a $600 million casino/family entertainment complex in Rock Hill, just off Route 17's Exit 109.

Their former company, Catskill Development, was the predecessor of Empire Resorts, which now wants to build a casino at the site of the old Concord hotel. Their new company is the Sullivan-based RH Land Development.

The new plans for Berman's Catskills Entertainment City and Casino Resort include a 527-acre family-oriented resort with a hotel, live theaters, a golf course and a casino, according to the project's website. There will also be at least two specific nods to the Catskills, a Catskills Comedy Hall of Fame and a Woodstock Revival.

Berman did not return calls for comment. Bernstein did not want to comment.

Now that New York state voters have approved a constitutional amendment allowing non-Indian casinos, the Entertainment City proposal joins a crowded field of at least five other projects vying for the first four upstate casino slots in three upstate regions: the Catskills/Hudson Valley, the Southern Tier and the Capital/Saratoga region. One region, widely assumed to be the Catskills, could get two.

Sullivan already has four casino contenders, with two projects vying to build at the Concord just outside Monticello and two more at, or adjacent to, the crumbling Grossinger's in Liberty. There's also one project in Ulster County, at the old Nevele in Ellenville.

The winners will be chosen by an as-yet-unnamed state panel by early summer, according to state Sen. John Bonacic, R-C, Mount Hope, an architect of the casino legislation.

Back in 2000, Berman's Catskill Development and the St, Regis Mohawk Indian tribe won federal approval for a casino at Monticello Raceway. While they were waiting for Gov. George Pataki to sign off on the deal, Park Place Entertainment lured the tribe away from Catskill, which effectively killed the plan.

sisrael@th-record.com

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